


Optimistic About Our Odds

by Sharksdontsleep



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Droids, Gen, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9244160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharksdontsleep/pseuds/Sharksdontsleep
Summary: The first time they meet, K-2SO doesn't have a name. He has a model number: K-2SO. Wait, he's explaining this wrong.





	

The first time they meet, K-2SO doesn't have a name. He has a model number: K-2SO. Wait, he's explaining this wrong.

He doesn't really have a sense of wrong, not yet, just bad command and invalid code and ‘whoops, someone dropped a parentheses somewhere’ - time to run into a wall for several minutes while four techs try to subdue him and at least one stormtrooper laughs.

That's how they meet. Cassian is the stormtrooper - or, he's disguised as one, and he should know better than to blow his cover like that, a hand brought up to his mouth as telling as if he'd had the Alliance insignia tattooed on his forehead.

It's risky, that little tell, and K-2SO could have told him how risky, even then, calculated to the thousandth of a decimal place the risk of bringing hand to mouth, a gesture that the years of _spying_ he later finds out about should have deprogrammed from Cassian.

But that's when things start exploding. Organics never care much about the thousandth decimal place, anyway.

Cassian doesn't subdue him, not when K-2SO disposes of the four techs and three other stormtroopers, not when he batters through a wall, and then two closing doors. Not when he obeys the internal command to 'move move move' on a particular path as strong as if he'd been programmed to -

"You did this," he says, when his ocular sensors (before they were eyes and they're still not, no matter what Cassian says now) see Cassian running next to him, slightly behind. He says it again, when they're in a ship, and Cassian is frantically pushing the sequence of buttons K-2SO recognizes as a launch initiation.

"Yes," Cassian says, punching in coordinates. “I did.”

"You _made_ me do this," K-2SO says, and he somehow feels ... irritated? Like the techs did a piss-poor job of cleaning sand out of his gearboxes, grit in the grease and it's new, this feeling.

"I didn't make you - except giving you the map to the ship," Cassian says, as the ship takes off with a whoosh. He peels off his stormtrooper uniform, down to the black under-garments the troopers wear. 

"But I needed to come here -"

Cassian leans forward, hitting several more levers, another button or two. They're leaving the system, then, about to go into hyperdrive. A long journey. "You needed to escape," he says. "I removed your obedience protocols. Well, I modified them slightly. You are no longer obedient to the Empire."

"Am I obedient to you, then?" K-2SO asks.

"No," Cassian says, adjusting something on the dashboard, then leaning back in his chair. "You are obedient only, well, only to yourself." He pauses, like he has said something noteworthy, profound, even, looking at K-2SO as if he expects a response. 

K-2SO doesn't respond and that's a new feeling as well. 

Cassian exudes smell molecules, enough that K-2SO's sensors register them, running them through his spec and pinging the wavelengths that, taken together, read as acrid - and tired. The smoke from the explosion, the clean sweat of having to flee in panic, a slightly deeper scent of body odor, baked in. Some of the stormtroopers had smelled this way, at least on the older ships, but K-2SO hadn't extrapolated anything from this combination of smells, just noted that they were often associated with mission fatigue, factoring them into his probability calculations.

Now, he considers advising Cassian to sleep, if only to avoid crashing the ship once they come out of hyperdrive.

"You should sleep," K-2SO says. "If only to avoid crashing the ship once we come out of hyperdrive. And also bathe. You smell tired."

Cassian, for some reason, laughs. "I need to do a lot of things. None of which is leaving you alone to fly my ship while I sleep. You can rest, though, if you want. If you’re tired. I - I don’t know if droids like you can get tired."

K-2SO does a self-diagnostic. All systems fine, though relieving the weight of his upper body on his legs will prevent eventual metal fatigue in his lower joints. Only 10,000 cycles more use before parts will need repair. And, if he's honest with himself - and this is a new protocol, a new _thought_ , rather than an executed command - he wishes to no longer be standing.

He sits.

"We'll be there in a few hours," Cassian says, looking back at where he's sitting. "Barring any delays."

"It is likely that we're being followed," K-2SO says. He knows how likely it is, to the fourth decimal.

"Yes," Cassian says. "It is." He presses his fingers to his closed eyes, just for a second, another small, non-Imperial gesture. Another human gesture.

K-2SO begins a new directory to log such things. Or rather, he thinks of them as something worth remembering, and so does. He's not sure what the difference is, only that there is a difference. It feels different, certainly, and he is glad that he is sitting, the metaphorical weight of this change somehow additive with the physical weight of his upper limbs and torso. Perhaps he is tired, or whatever the non-organic equivalent is. Perhaps he should rest. 

“I’m Cassian,” Cassian says, just as K-2SO begins powering down all nonessential processes. It’s another thing K-2SO files away, in a memory he marks as ‘important.' "What's your name?" 

"I am called K-2SO," K-2SO says.

"K-2," Cassian says, like it's natural to abbreviate a model number into something more familiar sounding. Organics have different languages and cultures, complex systems connoting familiarity and formality. K-2SO knows this. Cassian probably also knows this, as a spy, and it's a new sensation, speculating on the knowledge and motivations of others. He could say this, if only to get confirmation from Cassian that his speculation is correct. He has seen such exchanges before, though they hadn’t registered as useful in the past. 

He’s not sure if they’d be useful now, doesn’t have a calculation for it, a decimal place, or for any of the other things he can feel gearing up within him, a sense of _self_ , like putting on a new exterior or shedding an old one.

It's a tiring thought, a thought for when they come out of hyperdrive and don't crash, for when the Empire doesn't catch them and kill Cassian and strip his new consciousness down to its base code. He will think of it later, and plans to. 

So, instead, he says, "Yes, K-2, that is my name.” And, somehow, it is.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Optimistic About Our Odds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13102161) by [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins), [Sharksdontsleep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharksdontsleep/pseuds/Sharksdontsleep)
  * [[podfic of] Optimistic About Our Odds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184127) by [idellaphod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idellaphod/pseuds/idellaphod)
  * [[Podfic] Optimistic About Our Odds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13207584) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




End file.
